EPTDesignated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 1047
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Grumbels
Netherlands7031 Posts
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
But maintaining the creeprelated defenders advantage for Roaches is extremely important. Otherwise its gonna be a unit your just gonna make a lot of and then kill your opponent and/or zerg is gonna be even more vulnerable to timing attacks. Disagree. Lotv is the perfect opportunity to make the roach good in late game. Perfect opportunity to look at the roach ability making it more skillfull while making it have more counterplay. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
On August 06 2014 22:18 Foxxan wrote: Disagree. Lotv is the perfect opportunity to make the roach good in late game. Perfect opportunity to look at the roach ability making it more skillfull while making it have more counterplay. I thikn it's important to seperate interaction and overall gamedynamic which can be influenced by the defenders advantage. The only way to have two fast mobile forces battling it out against each other while havine back-and-fourth games is through a creep-spread based defenders advantage. Otherwise, the enemyplayer is just gonna go down to the zerg base and kill him if he has the stronger army. Further, the speed of the Roach is almost irrelevant for the interactions. No interaction is created or removed when a Roach goes off or no creep. A roach can indeed better kite Zealots oncreep than offcreep, however, the microtechnique is still the same for both the zerg and the protoss player. Creep spread for the Roach is thus only balance-focussed. An improved interaction here to come through a redeisgn of the Charge-mechanic. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On August 06 2014 21:26 Hider wrote: I disagree here.I think the issue with Roaches are that they are too strong for the cost cost + too supply ineffective. Right now they serve as a midgame map control unit, which creates lame gameplay as enemy just turtles against it. But maintaining the creeprelated defenders advantage for Roaches is extremely important. Otherwise its gonna be a unit your just gonna make a lot of and then kill your opponent and/or zerg is gonna be even more vulnerable to timing attacks. By reducing cost-efficiency I believe enemy can go out on the map more easily in the midgame, and with creep-spread defenders advantage maintained, the zerg should still be able to survive without "strong" mapcontrol. Ultras I think should be much faster both off-creep and oncreep, but less splash/armor. The issue with them right now vs terran is that they are way too strong vs bio-play in a straight up engagement, but he can and is forced to infinitely kite which isn't a good interaction. I think much faster Ultras that cannot be kited effectively, but which instead are weaker in a straight up battle will be good for the game. That's not to say I disagree with your ideas, but what you are proposing is a fullout remake of the unit, while in was just talking about how the current roachspeed interacts with the speed of other units. If we talk about a different roach with a different gameplay dynamic, this does of course open quite other design/balance opportunities. About the ultralisk, I just don't really like that unit to begin with. It's just tanky with hardly any control possible/necessary on the unit itself. Blizzard had the right idea trying to balancing them around some new ability, but just adding a combat ability on an existing unit is probably pretty hard, unless the unit was very weak to begin with. And in particular the underground charge with units being thrown away from the ultralisk so that it has to close in again was weird, visually and gameplaywise. | ||
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Faust852
Luxembourg4004 Posts
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
On August 06 2014 22:35 Big J wrote: That's not to say I disagree with your ideas, but what you are proposing is a fullout remake of the unit, while in was just talking about how the current roachspeed interacts with the speed of other units. If we talk about a different roach with a different gameplay dynamic, this does of course open quite other design/balance opportunities. About the ultralisk, I just don't really like that unit to begin with. It's just tanky with hardly any control possible/necessary on the unit itself. Blizzard had the right idea trying to balancing them around some new ability, but just adding a combat ability on an existing unit is probably pretty hard, unless the unit was very weak to begin with. And in particular the underground charge with units being thrown away from the ultralisk so that it has to close in again was weird, visually and gameplaywise. My suggestion is a small DPS nerf to the Roach (down from like 16 to 14) while reducing supply from 2 to 1. I wouldn't call that a remaking of the unit. It's rather an acknowledgement that you cannot tweak the Roach in itself to create more interactions (you can do this through burrow movement though). But you can change the gamedynamics of the game by tweaking the Roach in order to promote more battles. That, however, requires to reduce the assymetry in armystrenght of the Roachheavy played compared to his toss or terran opponent. | ||
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EngrishTeacher
Canada1109 Posts
On August 06 2014 22:41 Hider wrote: My suggestion is a small DPS nerf to the Roach (down from like 16 to 14) while reducing supply from 2 to 1. I wouldn't call that a remaking of the unit. It's rather an acknowledgement that you cannot tweak the Roach in itself to create more interactions (you can do this through burrow movement though). But you can change the gamedynamics of the game by tweaking the Roach in order to promote more battles. Agreed, you can't just suddenly give roaches a hive upgrade to make them "good in the late game". Even if the upgrade cost 300/300 it would still be terribly OP since roaches are so cheap and easily massed, and if you don't make the upgrade good enough then it'll just be a niche upgrade like burrow movement that few ever gets. Although I still shudder at the thought of 1 supply roaches... that's probably a route Blizzard should never go back to. | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
On August 06 2014 22:35 Hider wrote: I thikn it's important to seperate interaction and overall gamedynamic which can be influenced by the defenders advantage. The only way to have two fast mobile forces battling it out against each other while havine back-and-fourth games is through a creep-spread based defenders advantage. Otherwise, the enemyplayer is just gonna go down to the zerg base and kill him if he has the stronger army. Further, the speed of the Roach is almost irrelevant for the interactions. No interaction is created or removed when a Roach goes off or no creep. A roach can indeed better kite Zealots oncreep than offcreep, however, the microtechnique is still the same for both the zerg and the protoss player. Creep spread for the Roach is thus only balance-focussed. An improved interaction here to come through a redeisgn of the Charge-mechanic. I said i disagree that its really important to maintain the creeprelated defenders advantage since we are talking about lotv and in lotv i suspect some redesigns. Thats what i was saying. I see no reason to have the current roach in lotv since it is what u say, boring to just camp against hydra/roach or pure roach. Change this in lotv and by changing it, its not necessary to have the creep defenders advantage at all. So by looking at the burrow ability from the roach, perhaps this can make them more supply effecient, yes? Toning down their midgame presence is probably possible since in lotv, its possible to look at the whole race. So no more camping against this unit hopefully. Hopefully it becomes a real war against the roach in lotv and other units from zerg. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
On August 06 2014 22:55 Foxxan wrote: I said i disagree that its really important to maintain the creeprelated defenders advantage since we are talking about lotv and in lotv i suspect some redesigns. Thats what i was saying. I see no reason to have the current roach in lotv since it is what u say, boring to just camp against hydra/roach or pure roach. Change this in lotv and by changing it, its not necessary to have the creep defenders advantage at all. So by looking at the burrow ability from the roach, perhaps this can make them more supply effecient, yes? Toning down their midgame presence is probably possible since in lotv, its possible to look at the whole race. So no more camping against this unit hopefully. Hopefully it becomes a real war against the roach in lotv and other units from zerg. Well I am speaking more general here. Having a defenders advantage in the game that doesn't come from the unit them selves, but from a macromechanics (such as creep) makes it possible for mobile unit compositions to battle mobile unit compositions. Even if Roach is designed to be "interesting", it's not gonna work properly if the new redeisgn doesn't make a much better defensively than offensively. Thus, in many ways, having no external based defenders advantage constrains unit design possiblities. And tbh, I have no idea how to make a fun defender-based Roach. More relevant, Muta/bling is gonna work terribly vs 4M if the 4M player can just walk right into the zerg base whenever he has the stronger figthing army. There will be no back-and-fourth here, and Muta/bling therefore can not be a an interest composition if it doesn't benefit from creep. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On August 06 2014 22:41 Hider wrote: My suggestion is a small DPS nerf to the Roach (down from like 16 to 14) while reducing supply from 2 to 1. I wouldn't call that a remaking of the unit. It's rather an acknowledgement that you cannot tweak the Roach in itself to create more interactions (you can do this through burrow movement though). But you can change the gamedynamics of the game by tweaking the Roach in order to promote more battles. That, however, requires to reduce the assymetry in armystrenght of the Roachheavy played compared to his toss or terran opponent. Yeah, but that does basically nothing to make combats with the roach more interesting. Let's say a dps-change fullfills what you want (and what I would like to see as well), it's still just a unit that runs into the opponent and then you have enough or you don't (apart from targetfire). Also, again the original thing I was saying about roaches still holds (and is somewhat disconnected from this discussion about efficiency), that 3.9speed on creep is probably a little too much for many units to disengage. The particular change would probably be very problematic vs Protoss rushes since zealots then tank 2extra shots from roaches. Which incredibly ramps up the power of all the 6-8gates, man-trains, 3-5gate "pressures" after nexus etc. Which I don't think gets made up by the extra roach you get per overlord that you don't have to make in comparison (assuming adjustments to more gas less minerals work out for that timing, since this interacts with the ability to drone). | ||
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LoneYoShi
France1348 Posts
It's actually the closest thing we have to having a defenders advantage... but for zergs only ! Now that I think of it, Protoss have forcefields that kinda perform the same function (even though they can also be (ab)used offensively). | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
Also, again the original thing I was saying about roaches still holds (and is somewhat disconnected from this discussion about efficiency), that 3.9speed on creep is probably a little too much for many units to disengage. Kiting is micro, splitting is micro, taking back injured units is micro. But the decision of whether you want to engage or not isn't micro. If we look at Zealots vs Roaches, all you can do is a-move them regardless of whether they are on creep or offcreep, and Roaches benefit from kiting regardless of whether they are on or off creep. Thus, the movement speed here is almost irrelevant in the creation of interactions. As I wrote in my post, you basically can't create any interactions by changing the stats of the Roaches. All you can do with the Roach is to tweak the burrow movement speed and make sure that the overall gameplay it promotoes is fun. That's different from the Ultralisk, which could benefit from higher constant movement speed (both of and on) as it would deincneitivze kiting. If we look at whether the 3.9 movement speed incentivies "good" types of decisions or not, I think its important to match the Roach(Hydra) mobility/responsiveness with that of bio-play. Doing that will make it a lot easier in a hypothetical redeisgn of charge as it basically only needs to work in one way rather than work vs two very different types of units. Further, the enemy player isn't "supposed" to be highly incentivized to engage the enemy on creep. That is what a defender advantage is for. I don't think it discencourages any types of non-game ending battles that otherwise would exist if the creep advantage wasn't there. Rather, in scenarios where you really want to attack the zerg player, but chooses not do due to creep spread, chances are that without creep spread you would just have outright killed him. Thus, faster Roaches on creep, give the zerg player an opportunity for a comeback. And as I tried to point, the reason why we are not seeing enough actual battles with Roaches isn't due to creep spread, but rather due to the too high cost-effeciency of Roaches in the early midgame (combined with zerg larva production). | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On August 06 2014 23:41 Hider wrote: Kiting is micro, splitting is micro, taking back injured units is micro. But the decision of whether you want to your units or not isn't micro. If we look at Zealots vs Roaches, all you can do is a-move them regardless of whether they are on creep or offcreep. Thus, the movement speed here is almost irrelevant in the creation of interaction. Roaches benefit from kiting regardless of whether they are on or off creep. As I wrote in my post, you basically can't create any interactions by changing the stats of the Roaches. All you can do is tweak the burrow movement speed and make sure that the overall gameplay it promotoes is fun. That's different from the Ultralisk, which could benefit from higher constant movement speed (both of and on) as it would deincneitivze kiting. Well, zealots against roaches would be more fun if the speed/range relations were closer and similarily if the roach was punished more for not kiting (and rewarded more for doing so), so there is stuff that can be done to encourage micro. Though that's still not a great example for micro interactions, I agree. But if we look at stalkers vs roaches when stalkers are in the open but off creep chased by roaches, you will often see the Protoss doing things like getting a shot off, blinking his first row of stalkers back, getting another shot off, blinking the rest and retreating until the cooldown is on again. I think this is a cool (one-sided, but still) micro interaction that gets prevented by creep speed making roaches close in too fast. Similarily it is much easier to snipe Sentries and Immortals on creep, since you close in so fast that microing back with the Protoss units is useless. Off creep the speed discrepancy is halved however and in defensive Protoss/offcreep scenarios, you will often see how Immortals/sentries get pulled/kited back while the roaches try to close in/kite forward. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
Well, zealots against roaches would be more fun if the speed/range relations were closer and similarily if the roach was punished more for not kiting (and rewarded more for doing so), so there is stuff that can be done to encourage micro. Yeh, fix that through a redeisng of Charge I think this is a cool (one-sided, but still) micro interaction that gets prevented by creep speed making roaches close in too fast. But blink micro is still rewarded, right? It's just the outcome that is worse for the protoss player. Also, couldn't you make the argument that fast Roaches help to reduce the huge assymetry in mobility-based micro between blink stalkers and Roaches? Similarily it is much easier to snipe Sentries and Immortals on creep, since you close in so fast that microing back with the Protoss units is useless. Off creep the speed discrepancy is halved however and in defensive Protoss/offcreep scenarios, you will often see how Immortals/sentries get pulled/kited back while the roaches try to close in/kite forward This seems like a good thing to me. If anything, it feels like Roaches should have a higher movement speed off- and on creep as the unit becomes more microable through improved mobility (as a compensation for lower damage). | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
On August 06 2014 23:05 Hider wrote: Well I am speaking more general here. Having a defenders advantage in the game that doesn't come from the unit them selves, but from a macromechanics (such as creep) makes it possible for mobile unit compositions to battle mobile unit compositions. Even if Roach is designed to be "interesting", it's not gonna work properly if the new redeisgn doesn't make a much better defensively than offensively. Thus, in many ways, having no external based defenders advantage constrains unit design possiblities. And tbh, I have no idea how to make a fun defender-based Roach. More relevant, Muta/bling is gonna work terribly vs 4M if the 4M player can just walk right into the zerg base whenever he has the stronger figthing army. There will be no back-and-fourth here, and Muta/bling therefore can not be a an interest composition if it doesn't benefit from creep. A defenders advantage comes from many things: Such as spellcasters: Storm, fungal, PDD. And ofcourse many more. Units such as: Lurkers, reavers, siegetanks, swarmhost. And ofcourse many more. It comes from static defence and it comes from abilities on units such as the ultra charge while burrowed. It comes from the racial defenders advantage such as creep, shield battery from broodwar. And ofcourse many more. It comes from the terrain such as: Units are higher than the other unit. And more. (Cant think of more but logic there must be like 1000 things to do to terrain) If roach gets tweaked/redesigned then why cant hydra get tweaked to? Its not a fun unit overall. And why cant infestor gets redesiegned? Further, there are tons of things to do with the roach btw. Such as making it better vs marines or hell, why cant marines be redesgiend for lotv for example? Maybe they add in lurkers. They have said they have wanted this for hots actually. So many things to do here, looking at the roach and saying its impossible to remove creep is wrong. About bio, it will not be easy and yes, it will be back and forth because why cant the spells from zerg support these units? Why cant abilities on units get implmented or some other defenders advantage. If zerg has a fun cool strong spell, then bio will not just walk into zergs base and win. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On August 07 2014 00:01 Hider wrote: Yeh, fix that through a redeisng of Charge But blink micro is still rewarded, right? It's just the outcome that is worse for the protoss player. Also, couldn't you make the argument that fast Roaches help to reduce the huge assymetry in mobility-based micro between blink stalkers and Roaches? This seems like a good thing to me. If anything, it feels like Roaches should have a higher movement speed off- and on creep as the unit becomes more microable through improved mobility (as a compensation for lower damage). My point is not that the defenders advantage shouldn't be there, but rather that it is so strong that it completely discourages the opponent's micro. Blink micro is still there, but most forms of kiting and pulling back lose their legitimacy with speed differences of >=1. I think with 3.25 to 3.6speed on creep the advantage would still be there, but the opponent could still use range advantages of around ~2 to some degree. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
About bio, it will not be easy and yes, it will be back and forth because why cant the spells from zerg support these units? Why cant abilities on units get implmented or some other defenders advantage. In a world without creep spread, I don't think a spellcaster can provide enough of a defenders advantage while at the same not disencourange attacks in general (like attacks on the middle of the map). At least not without making all maps have an extremely narrow entrance to the natural/3rd. If you make the spell so strong that the enemy can't attack into it, what prevents the zerg (assuming he has a small advantage) from not just going right into the enemy and kill him? In BW, Psy Storm works, because the protoss (for various reasons) needs to invest in cannons which overall makes their defenders advantage stronger relative to their aggressive options. Further, the zerg player has defensive-focussed units like the Lurker/Defiler. But I think attempting to replicate that solution for both TvZ and PvZ will be very complicated and I also believe that way of balancing the game has lots of other unintended consequences. A unit like the Lurker can work as a defensive focussed unit (in a world wihtout creep spread), however, it will force the zerg to get the Lurker'ish unit in the early midgame almost always (because the game is balanced around zerg needing that defensive unit). The only way the zerg can do other things than the Lurker is if the enemy has a very weak attacking force in the midgame, which means he wouldn't be able to just kill the Lurkerless zerg player. I don't like that solution as it will reduce diversification. I much rather maintain the options of mobility vs mobility which currently exist in 4M vs Muta/bling while also adding a Lurker'ish based vs Tank/Raven interaction on top of that. At least, what is it exactly your accomplishing by an unitbased defenders advantages? If the isuse you have with creep is that you cannot engage on creep, is that really that different the unit-focussed solution? In that solution, it's not like you can just attack right into the enemy either as their units are very strong defensively. In my opinion, I find it a ton more fun to try and actively limit the creep from spreading in TvZ than just staring at an enemy that turtles behind his basesetup. | ||
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Pontius Pirate
United States1557 Posts
On August 06 2014 23:41 Hider wrote: As I wrote in my post, you basically can't create any interactions by changing the stats of the Roaches. All you can do with the Roach is to tweak the burrow movement speed and make sure that the overall gameplay it promotoes is fun. I remember suggesting once that Organic Carapace should be reintroduced, but modified, so that it locks the unit in place and still allows for attacking (at a longer cooldown), in exchange for higher armor and higher HP regeneration, so that the Roach can be further microed in a role as a tanking unit. | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
On August 06 2014 23:41 Hider wrote: As I wrote in my post, you basically can't create any interactions by changing the stats of the Roaches. All you can do with the Roach is to tweak the burrow movement speed and make sure that the overall gameplay it promotoes is fun. Hmm. Tbh, nothing is impossible. If roach can charge his autoattack. When it charge it, it will fire a projectile. Maybe the projectile is abit slower than the normal autoattack. Its possible to dodge it: Blink can dodge it Zealots charge can dodge it(imagine it be redesigned) Pick up a unit. Burrowing a unit dodges it. And what if a cool reactionary spell can block projectiles but not like the PDD. "Oh shit he is charging its attack" and then be rdy to use it right after the roach fires. Using the spell on a friendly enemy for 25 mana which lasts 2sec so its not a spam spell. Lets call this spellcaster medic just for this example. So medic and marine is a new cool interaction vs the roach. Zealots will have a new interaction. Roaches vs roaches Immortals with stalkers. Toss want the immortal to walk before the stalkers. The roaches wanna aim the charge against the stalkers... Now it has created alot of things just with a new attack from the roach. Note, they still have the normal autoattack or ofcourse maybe tweak it to so the roach gets even cooler. Any thoughts about this? Maybe something along this line can work in an rts such as starcraft? | ||
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Tyrhanius
France947 Posts
On August 06 2014 22:50 EngrishTeacher wrote: Agreed, you can't just suddenly give roaches a hive upgrade to make them "good in the late game". Even if the upgrade cost 300/300 it would still be terribly OP since roaches are so cheap and easily massed, and if you don't make the upgrade good enough then it'll just be a niche upgrade like burrow movement that few ever gets. Although I still shudder at the thought of 1 supply roaches... that's probably a route Blizzard should never go back to. Just give a hive upgrade that make roach need only 1 supply instead of 2 (and maybe hydras too). The time Zerg gets hive + the upgrade, the T/P already has some AOE/immortal/upgraded bio counter so it's not OP anymore. Aslo zerg could swarm his opponent, constantly reproduicing roach/hydra + vipers and attacking/trading constantly in ZvP for example, rather than being forced to go Swarm host defensive vs protoss late game. And probably much more interesting for protoss trading vs a swarm of roach/hydras/vipers rather than the locusts. The zerg army will cost more, but he will be able to secure more base as he has more units and more mobile than SH. Aslo, then you can consider reworking SH to prevent lame use without breaking balance. | ||
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